Suspension of Disbelief
by Killer Zebra
Summary: Girl goes into things with her eyes open, for once, schemes to overthrow the voices in her head —and maybe Prince's too, while she's at it— encounters a familiar part-selkie… all part of the beautiful cliché-ness of this tale. Sequel to LTP.
1. Prologue

[o{o}o]

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.  
**Revelation 6:8, King James Bible**

* * *

**Prologue**

_You can only have so much fear. At some point, your life—the world—becomes so terrifying that you have to decide what's really worth it—what you really should be afraid of. _

_Is death worth fearing? I've been close to it so many times that I've had no choice but to think on this question, and the answer I've come to is—yes. Death is the ultimate unknown, the ultimate mystery—the one thing which is inevitable, and which in the end we are all powerless to stop. Death is helplessness at its most terrifying. But on the same token, knowing it will come for me, I cannot spend my life wasting my fear on the inevitable. The powerlessness of death frightens me, but it is powerless; there's something comforting about this one thing being out of my hands. And if death is powerlessness, then life is the opposite. I choose—I have the power to decide my own fate; even to change the fates of others. Incredible power; frightening power; power that some people would kill for. The power of freedom. The power of choice. _

_Every choice has a consequence; my choices even more so. Is it really so strange that I fear life more than death?_

[o{o}o]


	2. In Between

**AN: Okay, I hate to disappoint you all, but this is going to be the only bit of this story that you'll have for a**_**long**_**time. Life kind of intervened, and whenever I tried to write it just didn't**_**flow**_**—good news is, I know exactly what I'm going to do with this story. I don't have to figure anything out. I have the first couple chapters and the last couple chapters written (yeah, I kind of work that way. I did the same thing with NWIHP, it's weird), and I know what I want to have in between. I just don't have it**_**written**_**yet. I promise you all, though, that I'm making this story top priority: this gets written before**_**anything**_**else. (Sorry, anyone who was waiting for the last installment of my**_**Dragon's Bait**_**series…) Anyway, though, I hope you all enjoy this small taste of what's to come! And of course, as always, I'd love it if you'd review and let me know your thoughts. :) Thank you all for reading!**

**Disclaimer: This is a fan fiction website. Meaning that it's fiction written by a **_**fan. **_**Not by the owner. If you need it stated more baldly: no, I do not own Prince of Persia. This may be applied to all future chapters.**

* * *

Jenny (to Prince & co.): _"I'm alive. Yay."  
_**(Excerpt from Chapter 8 of **_**Not What I Had Planned)**_

[o{o}o]

**Chapter 1: In Between**

_I __**detest **__mud,_ I thought viciously.

As far as noble first thoughts went, I could've done better. But when one has been as good as dead for who knows how long, and when one finally _does_ wake up again one is covered in cold, wet, _muddy_ mud, it does not make one very happy. Um... hypothetically speaking, of course.

Then I did a double take and went back over that thought: _I'm alive._

I opened my eyes and got to my feet, half just because I could. I didn't know how long I had been incommunicado, but it was long enough that having an actual _body_ to move around felt strange—long enough that I didn't equate my body with my being so much anymore. I real—I was me. I was no longer lost in the void. I stood easily enough—it almost seemed as though I should feel stiff, but I didn't—but once I was standing, all of the things that should have been automatic (like balance and breathing) had to be carefully monitored, gotten used to again. It was as though I needed a few minutes to settle into my own skin. But I _had_ skin. I had a body. I was gloriously, irrefutably _me, _and after not existing for so long, there was nothing I wanted to be more.

. . . Except, maybe, not covered in mud.

I breathed in, tasting the cold, clear air as I looked over my surroundings. I couldn't see very far, since the sun was either just rising or just set, and the only illumination was a sort of gray half-light. My eyes were quickly adjusting to the dimness, though, and I could make out the forest of ponderosa pines around me, the gaps in between the trees filled with low-to-the-ground scrub brush. I didn't recognize the specific place, but the plant life and general environment was unmistakable: I was near home. Unsurprisingly, the ground was very muddy. The ground...

_The sun must be rising,_ I decided, realizing that the increasing clarity of my surroundings wasn't only because of my eyes adjusting. The eastern skyline glowed a pale yellow. In the strengthening light, though, something lodged in the mud beside me caught my eye: an inexplicable flash of gold on a silver ring...

The Ring. It was here._ I_ was here. The meaning of either of these things was utterly beyond my grasp, I was sure. I _wasn't supposed to be here._ I'd taken on Melon-boobs' fate in full knowledge of what I was getting into (I'd _thought_), and that _hadn't_ included waking up covered in mud, back where I'd started. Actually, it hadn't really included waking up at _all._

"You," I said to the Ring, looking down at it, "are a puzzling object."

Sweet armadillos, yes I was glad to be alive! I'd been sort of relieved that I didn't have to deal with my haphazard chaos of a life anymore, sure, but I wasn't suicidal: I liked being alive just fine, thank you very much, even at the times when I didn't like my life all that much. But it was also somewhat irritating: even when I died on _purpose_ it didn't work. How many times had it been now? Three? Anything more than once was too many, in my opinion.

I was about to reach down and pick up the Ring when a realization suddenly struck me, causing me to abruptly halt the motion. A water sprite called Raya had once explained to me how the Artifacts functioned; her words came back to me as I stood there in the forest.

"_The only way that the Artifacts can travel through worlds is if they find the right bearer: a bearer whose soul they can fit into, can intertwine themselves with, and use as a vessel to carry them to the destination of their choice."_

I was the Ring's chosen bearer. That much was proven. If I picked it up now, it would use me as it already had twice before, and my number of deaths would soon rise to four. I could just choose to leave it here, to be buried in the mud, perhaps discovered one day by some hikers who would later sell it to an antique shop for some unsuspecting teenage girl to find there... I could go home to my mom and dad; to Anna and Thomas and their families, whose lives I'd already missed so much of; to Kim, who was finally building a life for herself. A life without me. She had a wonderful fiancé; she was studying to become a grade-school teacher. She no longer felt obligated to take time out of her week to visit her comatose best friend in the hospital. And what was I going to do? Come charging in, miraculously alive and healed, and shove my way back into all of their lives while simultaneously trying to concoct some cock-and-bull story as to how I was alive?

_No._

I stared down at the Ring, frowning slightly as the first pale golden shafts of sunlight shone through the trees, tentatively illuminating the slowly waking forest and warming my mud-caked skin. My hands fidgeted uneasily, clasping and unclasping in a restless movement, although the rest of me remained utterly still.

My eyes left the Ring to go back over the forest: it was so lovely, so wild, so... home. So mundane and earthen, so very _before:_ before all this happened; before the Ring. There was no magic here in the 'dead world'. None but the power contained within the object at my feet. Slowly, I brought my gaze back down to look at it; a sigh escaped me.

It was by no means the hardest decision I'd ever had to make. In fact, the only surprising thing about it was how easy it was. Everything that was dear to me in this world, everything that would hold me here, would also be better off without me. The people I loved had formed their own lives that didn't include me, and though I knew that they loved me as I loved them, and would joyfully take me back in an instant, I also knew that they had come to terms with my absence, and could be happy without me there. If I came back, I would bring the chaos that stalked me into their lives, and I didn't want that. They had their own lives... and I had mine. Prince, Farah, Lucan—the world that the Ring had introduced me to now held people I loved as well (even if two of them hadn't the faintest idea that I existed). In that world was now my life. Here? This wasn't where I belonged anymore.

I smiled slightly, almost sadly, and bent down to pick up the Ring.

For a moment I stood stiffly there, half expecting to be instantly struck by lightning or something of the sort. When several minutes ticked by and I was still in one piece, I began to relax, looking around at the increasingly sunlit forest. _Well, I might as well explore a bit while I'm waiting to die._

I took my time, carefully picking through the dew-laden underbrush (although that didn't stop the jean cutoffs I was wearing from getting soaked—apparently my clothing had been restored to what it was before, for I was also wearing my previously shredded black tank-top) and taking deep breaths, tasting the clean morning air. I didn't know how long it would be before I next smelled a pine forest, if ever. They weren't exactly common in Persia. The air was cold, and goosebumps formed on my arms, but I didn't care. In fact, I practically reveled in the sensation: it meant that I was alive.

The sun rose higher in the sky. I'd been walking for an hour, perhaps longer. I was pleasantly warmed now, both from the sun and from my light exertions. Now I was approaching a river. I'd passed several creeks, small things, hardly more than a trickle, but this sounded much larger. Perhaps the others fed into it. My steps quickened a little, hurrying toward the noise because I was thirsty, and a river, even if not entirely sanitary, was better than dehydration.

The narrow, rushing river came into view, and I eagerly stepped forward—but I didn't notice the old, gnarly oak tree growing precariously on the bank until I tripped over one of its roots and tumbled into the water with a shriek of surprise, which was abruptly cut off when my temple struck stone.

[o{o}o]

_**I do not like dying, **__I thought, disgruntled. __**There's so many ways to get oneself killed, though. It's a wonder that I made it to seventeen. **_

_I was older than that now, of course, but seventeen had been the first time I died, so even though I was still alive (sort of… maybe), I'd only, erm, not died until I was seventeen. Would I have made a different decision that day in the antique shop, had I known? I wasn't sure. I thought that I probably would've. But I also __**knew**__ that if I had, I would've regretted it for the rest of my life. _

_A horrifying thought occurred to me, pulling me from my reverie: I was back in the darkness. I was back in the nothing. The Ring hadn't sent me back to the Hourglass' world after all—I was trapped here—I would lose myself again—!_

"_**You will not be here for long,"**__a voice said. Well—it wasn't exactly a voice. In the emptiness there was no such thing as sound, but I heard it somehow, all the same. It almost sounded like…_

"_**Melon-b— Erm, Kaileena? What are you doing here?" **_

_Some of the darkness became less dark. A shape became visible in the distance… The shape of a woman, but it was not formed of flesh: instead, it was translucent and golden, made up of thousands of particles of Sand. The figure came closer until I could see clearly that it was, indeed, the Empress. _

_I grimaced inwardly. __**"Oh.**__**You've already rendered my veritable suicide useless, I see."**_

_Kaileena smiled with golden lips. __**"Exactly. In answer to your first question, that is what I'm doing here: I took my own fate back. You bore it temporarily, and I thank you for that, but now is my time to reclaim it."**_

_I stared. Well, actually I didn't have eyes, and what I __**did **__see was all going on in my head, just as the sound was—but I stared, all the same. It was the thought that counted, really. __**"Oh. Wait, so that's why I'm alive? … It works that way? I thought that, well, it was a no-refund kind of thing." **_

_The Empress actually looked somewhat sheepish. __**"Yes, well… The one in charge of all this fate business seems to like you. He was willing to… hmm, bend the rules a little bit."**_

_I almost smiled. __**I owe you one, Dahaka… **_

_I was suddenly a bit concerned, though, looking at the hungry void surrounding us. __**"This… this place, it isn't death, is it? Cause seriously, if that's the way that death is, just an endless void… it's no wonder people fear it."**_

_Melon-boobs (whose boobs seemed to have shrunken a bit now that she was made of Sand, strangely enough—maybe they __**had **__been fake) shook her head adamantly. __**"No. That is not death. That is merely... an in-between place. Limbo, you might call it."**_

_If I'd had lungs and lips to do it with, I would've sighed in relief. As it was, I settled for the mental version of the same thing. The Limbo place had been horrible, like a nightmare that wouldn't seem particularly distressing to an outsider, but was made so by the raw emotion that the dream made you feel. I could think of things that would be worse than having to go back there... but not many. The Limbo was nothingness, blankness, a hungry void that eventually would have sucked the soul out of me. It had been well on its way to doing so already before I'd gotten out of there. I had died before, body-death... But the Limbo was soul-death. _

_I looked at the Empress, considering. __**"So what next, then? Do you have to stick around here until Prince dispels the Sands?"**__ I shuddered at the next thought. __**"Do **__**I**__**?"**_

_She shook her golden head. __**"No. I just …" **__she seemed to search for an appropriate word, __**"… **__**detained**__** you here briefly so that I could explain a few things." **__Her lips quirked. __**"I hope for your sake that this is the last time we speak for a long time." **_

_I understood that, in a sort of twisted way, she was wishing me good luck: she hoped that I wouldn't be visiting Death's doors again anytime soon. _

"_**I don't know," **__I said, reflecting on her brief appearance in the physical realm when Prince dispelled (would dispel?) the Sands. __**"Perhaps we'll see each other sooner than you think."**_

_Regrettably, Melon-Boobs did not take the bait. __**"Goodbye, Jennifer."**_

_I didn't get a chance to reply. The world dissolved in light._

[o{o}o]

**Interlude: Journeys to Babylon**

_In the city of Babylon, a Princess is caged like an animal, mocked and reviled, and forced to watch helplessly as her people are abused and misused, as well as those of the city which she finds herself in… all because of a man her father had trusted, and even named as his vizier: __**Zervan.**__ With every atrocity that she is forced to witness, though, she vows that she will break free of her cage; she will not let the vile creature escape justice: she __**will**__ save her people.

* * *

__Not far away, a common, unremarkable soldier in Zervan's ranks goes about his ordinary day, patrolling Babylon's streets with his troop of comrades and cowing the city's residents into submission. There is nothing to mark him as different from the other members of his cavalcade, nothing remarkable about him at first sight—but if one looked closely, one might note that his eyes are rather peculiar, with a deep, soft brown iris that encompasses them, leaving no room for the whites. If one observed even more carefully, one might notice that when the soldier jokes along with his fellows, terrorizing the helpless citizens of Babylon, that there is a pained light in those brown eyes, or that when the soldiers seem inclined toward making their terror tactics more physical, he subtly distracts them or persuades them away from their purpose. The truth is that this unremarkable, common soldier is not a common soldier at all: in fact, he was once a member of India's Royal Guard. He considers himself to still be so, even though he is the only one left living to claim membership. But with every terrified face he sees, and with every injury or indignity Zervan's men inflict upon the innocent, the brown-eyed man makes a vow to himself: he will rescue his princess, he will bring down the evil ultimately responsible for these terrible acts, and he __**will **__exact retribution for what has been done. He will not remain hidden forever.

* * *

__In the same city, in a recently overtaken palace, a woman stands unobtrusively in the shadows behind a powerful man; a woman of almost inhuman beauty, but with lines on her face that speak of pain and experience. She is no stranger to this place: she stood in the same place for the Sultan of Azad for years. He was the one who taught her the lesson that ruled the rest of her days: __**Men are not to be trusted. They will betray you, in the end.**__ He taught her this valuable lesson by casting her out when she became with child, only because the child was not his own—he sometimes "loaned" her to those he favored. __She had worked, worked hard and long, for her place as the Sultan's favorite: that was all destroyed in an instant. She was cast out, shunned, dropped and discarded like chattel. When her child, a daughter, was born, she named her Mala'in: __**accursed.**__ The woman hated the child she had borne, for she saw her as a curse; the source of all her troubles. But Mala'in could not understand this: she was only a babe, helpless and dependent on her mother for care. Slowly, the woman began to understand this, and its impact on her was staggering: her daughter was helpless without her. Her daughter's life __**depended **__on her. The woman had never been anything other than selfish: every action she had ever taken in her life had been carefully calculated to bring __**her**__ the most benefit. She had never cared enough about another creature to bother even considering the impact of her actions on them. But now every choice she made also affected the life she had brought into the world, her daughter who she had named "accursed"—and she could not find it within herself to be indifferent. For the first time in its cold, selfish existence, the woman's heart held love for something other than herself.__The woman's life was hard, but she did her best for herself and her child. She turned to the sale of her body, the only trade she knew, to support them. The woman was very beautiful, and she had no trouble attracting customers. The other women in the same trade were envious of her, and so the woman was alone but for her accursed, beloved child—not that she cared. She had always been alone. Her mother, the only person who had ever really cared for her, had died when she was very small, leaving behind only a hand-held mirror, wrought of silver and elaborately worked with strange, elaborate designs. She kept it with her always, one of the few things she had managed to save from her old life. She planned to pass the heirloom on to Mala'in, someday.  
__Years went by in monotony, and the woman would hardly have noted their passage if not for the changes in her daughter as she grew and matured: Mala'in, bright and clever, brought life to the woman's otherwise dull, miserable existence. The woman now considered the name "accursed" to be the greatest of ironies: Mala'in was her blessing. Her only blessing. The woman gave to Mala'in everything she was able, whether in material goods or life lessons, and she loved her daughter with everything she had, for she loved no one else. Still, though, she wished that she could give her daughter more: she had seen that there were better things in life, and she thought that Mala'in deserved all of them.  
__So when word came of an army passing nearby, an army of India, led by a new leader (__**Zervan,**__ he was called) Leila knew that their chance—hers and Mala'in's—had come. She packed sparsely and left the city with only that which was most precious to her, which included her daughter. Fortunately, with a general idea of where to go, it was not difficult to find the large, widespread army, marching on its path to Babylon. The woman joined the caravans that followed behind the army—for every woman in her line of work knew that with an army came profit, for the soldiers desired entertainment when away from their homes and their women. The woman, though, was incredibly beautiful, and once upon a time she had been a fine, high-placed courtesan: she was a thoroughbred among mustang mares, and it was noticed. __**She **__was noticed. She observed (of course, how could she not?) when her customers began to trend more and more toward the higher-placed in the army—and finally, Zervan himself came to see her. He was impressed and intrigued. He came back—more than once. One day, he offered her a place at his side. The woman was not a fool: this could be the opportunity she had been waiting for, and even if it wasn't, she was not so unwise as to offend someone as powerful as Zervan by denying him. She accepted his offer—but of Mala'in she made no mention, fearful of the repercussions.  
__She left her daughter with one of the women of the night that seemed to be fond of her and was willing to take her and stay quiet about who she belonged to in exchange for some recommendations in the circles that the woman would be traveling in. The woman was grief-stricken at having to leave Mala'in, but she knew that their separation was only temporary, and that it would be the best thing for them both, in the end.  
__Now, though, still beside him in Babylon, having stood by him all this time—the woman is not so sure. She has been the one to listen to his insane ambitions, his sick plans for the world he intends to rule—the only comfort she has had was that she at least had the wisdom to never put Mala'in in his path, and at least his angry episodes, though they meant pain for her, also meant that he was still unable to achieve his foremost goal: immortality. But now… now that goal is within his grasp. And the woman, for all her ingenuity, cannot for the life of her think of how to prevent him from reaching it.  
__Zervan himself has no idea of the plots of those around him, although he would certainly not be surprised to hear of the princess'. He, in fact, is far too exhilarated and euphoric at the fulfillment of all his dreams to care, even if he did know: for he finally has within his grasp what he has sought after for all these years: __**immortality.**__ The Prince of Persia lies helpless at his feet, restrained by Mahasti; the Dagger of Time is in his hands; and the Empress of Time, brought so handily within his reach by the aforementioned Prince, is bound before him, unable to escape. With a cruel, triumphant smirk, he thrusts the Dagger into the Empress' stomach.

* * *

__Still playing the part of a good soldier in hopes of an opportunity to free the princess he serves, a kink is thrown into the brown-eyed man's plans when Sand rushes over the city, infecting those who serve Zervan, who freed the Sands. It doesn't take the newly changed soldiers long to notice that there is one in their midst who remains uncorrupted… Realizing that his cover is blown, the brown-eyed man strategically turns tail and runs.

* * *

__Mala'in misses her mother. At five years old, she has had a difficult life. She's young, but having a prostitute as a mother and living in the slums her whole life has made her older than her years in some ways. Unlike many children would be, when the woman supposed to be watching her is killed and she's left alone on the streets of a war-torn city, Mala'in is not completely helpless. She's scared, but she clings to the memory of the advice that she has been given, by her mother and adults that she trusts: __**Don't attract attention; if you're spotted, stay on the move; always keep a weapon on you, but remember that your best self-defense is retreat; be constantly aware, and keep an eye out for anything that might help you find your way to safety; if you must resort to thievery, steal only from the kind-looking ones: they're less likely to kill you if you're caught; approach a trustworthy-seeming stranger only if you have no other options; and never, ever trust a man.  
**__Mala'in is good at not attracting attention: she has plenty of practice. She stays out of sight and moves from place to place, listening and watching. She knows that her mother is with Zervan, the Bad Man, but she also knows that she doesn't want Zervan to know about her… So what is she to do? She scavenges what food she can, but doesn't bother trying to steal money; no one is selling food, anyway, they're too busy trying to save themselves from the invaders. But then something happens that Mala'in was never given advice for: a great cloud of Sand sweeps over the city, and the Bad Man's soldiers are transformed into monstrous things. Mala'in flees in terror through the streets of Babylon, wanting her mother desperately but willing to settle for a benevolent stranger—and then she runs into one. Only, he's a __**man**__, and her mother has always warned her to never trust men. But his odd, soft brown eyes remind her of the scruffy, emaciated stray dog that used to lurk around on the street that she and her mother lived on, the one that liked Mala'in because she was the only one that didn't kick and curse at it for begging. And Mala'in is very scared…_

[o{o}o]

**AN: Peoples! Hi!... Wow, that "Interlude" thing with the other characters was meant to just be a quick catch-up, but it kind of grew into a monster… I assume that you wall knew who was being talked about, even though I generally didn't name names? Um…Yes, Jenny has now reached death #4. Yay! Congrats, Jen!  
Jenny: ***sarcastically* "Yeah. Thanks so much. I just love getting constantly knocked unconscious and killed off." **  
OPOD: **"I did warn you, didn't I? You signed the contract anyway!"**  
O.o... Wait— *turns to Muse* Since when can he talk?  
Muse: **"Since I said so. I used my Colorful-Muse-Horse-Weird-Fabulous abilities to grant the fish speech! Aren't I brilliant?"**  
Jenny: **"... Sweet armadillos, what have you _done?"_**  
OPOD and Muse: ***grin evilly at each other*  
**Uhhh… *blinks* Ahem. Howzabout you peoples review? I suppose I could now make OPOD cajole it out of you. Or I could force the Muse to do it as punishment... Hey, Muse!... Muse?  
Jenny: **"He disappeared again. How does he _do_ that?"  
**OPOD: ***shrug*"Beats me."

**~Killer Zebra**


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